Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1909 — COMES WITH BAD TASTE. [ARTICLE]

COMES WITH BAD TASTE.

Two of the principal stockholders in the Rensselaer Republican (see statement of names of partners in the report filed with the county clerk, under the new law requiring that names of partners be so filed) being also stockholders in the Jasper County Telephone Co.—Dr. Washburn and Mrs. Watson—it comes with bad taste for that sheet to oppose the formation of a mutual telephone Company in Jasper couhty to afford the people, and especially the farming districts, something in the way of decent telephone service. Its gleeful publication of the fact that the Monticello Telephone Co., the only one of the numerous companies in this section of the state that the Jasper County Co., could get to join it in its move to raise rates about 50 per cent, got an ordinance railroaded through the Monticello town council permitting the raise, and its attempt to make The Democrat man out a liar in his report of mutual conditions in Boone county, shows very plainly where the Republican stands. But this comes with bad taste, considering thfe close connection of the Republican ownership with the telephone interests .here. 1 Regarding the Boone county mutuals, The Democrat offered to take the editor of the White County Democrat—who had copied our article

and thus raised a storm from the Monticello Telephone Co.—down to Lebanon and let him investigate the truth of our statements in relation to mutual conditions there. He could not get away, he wrote us, although it would have taken but a few hours and our money would have paid the expense. As we stated in our article, some of the members of the Lebanon company were away investigating the central energy system when we were there, including, as we understood, the president- But we saw and talked with the manager for some £me, got much of our information from him and were shown through the exchange, which is much more up-to-date than ours. | We do not believe the farmers of Boone county are such chumps as to build lines up to Lebanon and tell the Lebanon company they can ;have free use of them without getting something in return, as the .president of that company now states. We were told by Editor McKey, Mr. Duvall of the First National Bank of Lebanon, and by the telephone manager that the town patrons got free service over the mutual lines, and vice versa, which looks more reasonable than the president of the Lebanon company now states. There is nothing else in his statements that amount to anything. He doesn’t deny the rates now in force there, but says they are going to raise them. Of course. Who ever saw a corporation that was satisfied with what it was getting from its victims? And in too mahy instances these corporations have their grip on the newspapers so that the people have no one to champion their cause. The writer was in a newspaper office In Indiana a few years ago, for example, and noticing that there were a large number of electric lights in the office we asked the editor what he had to pay a month for his lights there. “Not a red,” he replied. “The light company gives the newspaper offices here all the lights they want and makes no charge for them whatever.” We wandered If the newspapers of that town ever championed a cause that was Inimical to the light company? The Democrat has no strings attached to it in any way. It pays for its telephone service and always expects to. It would not accept free service were it offered it. But, Instead of attacking The Democrat’s statements of mutual telephone conditions in Boone county, why not get closer home? We have made certain statements about the success of the mutual telephone company at Brook, our neighboring town on the west, In which several of the most prominent farmers of the west part of Jordan tp., are stockholders and officers. Why not deny these statements of The Democrat’ Is it because they are so easily and conclusively proven true that not a w’ord is said about the Brook system?